“And in the same way that SF focuses on the impact of information technologies on the psychology of a society, black literature moves the silence and intellectual marginalization of blacks to the foreground. Both represent an attempt to view everything through a single lens, so that we can see the specter haunting society that society doesn’t want to acknowledge.” Greg Tate

      I found this passage interesting. It is as though black literature is trying to smack us in the face with issues we are trying to ignore. So often, we as a society try to convince ourselves that things in the past such as slavery are exactly that; in the past. What we choose not to acknowledge that slavery and the following oppression were wrong and DO have repercussions even to this day. It had previously never really occurred to me the lack of real history most black people in our country hold. I always knew that when slaves were brought over that they were not allowed to speak their own languages and were often separated from their families and even their own people but I guess I never really sat and thought about what that truly meant. I never realized that a painful effect of that was the loss of family and cultural history. My grandmother is an immigrant but she and all of her family before her grew up in Scotland and I have such a rich knowledge of my own families past and that in turn has shaped who I am and who I would like to be.

      The intellectual marginalization of blacks is something I never really analyzed either. We all know the stereotypes we see every day but I guess, since a lot if these come from black musical artists themselves we forget that they are still stereotypes and they lower the public perception of the intelligence of blacks.

      Darryl Smith’s “The Pretended” did exactly as Greg Tate was getting at by smacking me in the face with certain truths. The conversation between Diva Eve and Mnemosyne on the train was very revealing. In the beginning of the story I thought it was going to be another case of robots, or aliens serving as “the other”. I thought it was going to be another commentary on how they are ostracized and how those around them don’t even realize it. I realized that Mnemosyne and her mother were robots whole those around them were “people” and that they worked for the “people”. The conversation on the train, however revealed that this story was going to be so much more.

      For so long whites did treat blacks as if they weren’t real people, I believe there was a point in American history where they became 1/3 of a person so I suppose that was progress….I found it so interesting that Smith created a word where whites, after feeling so guilty about treating blacks as “not people” for so long that they built actual “not people” (robots) and then modeled them to be black so as to reassure themselves that black people were “not people”. I have to admit that that blew my mind.

      When the conversation began I was confused as to why the robots, in a futuristic society which to me insinuates a more intelligent society, would speak English so poorly. When it became known that the robots were modeled after black people it made so much more sense. It was hear that the intellectual marginalization that Tate was speaking of was moved to the foreground. Our stereotypes have become so strong that in the world Smith has imagined, blacks are still created to appear unintelligent.

Discussion questions:

1. This story was written in 2000, is there anything about this time period that you believe would inspire Smith to write such a scathing review on the intents of white society and how they may one day try to alive their guilt?

2. The robots were made to resemble black people and speak in an older type of dialect, especially since the story was written in 2000. If they were built to reinforce the idea of blacks being “not people” what effect does the dialect used by them have on making them seem not as real. Does it make them more endearing or do they appear so uneducated that they couldn’t be worthy of real respect?